


Survival is Insufficient: Kirsten’s Memories and Hopes

by hilandmum



Category: Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 17:35:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12846129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilandmum/pseuds/hilandmum
Summary: The Traveling Symphony is traveling south toward the grid of lights and Kirsten thinks back on her memories.





	Survival is Insufficient: Kirsten’s Memories and Hopes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Northland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/gifts).



> Northland, you wanted: The lost year and/or how Kristen got her scar? Or simply a day/week/season in the life of the Travelling Symphony would be marvelous. 
> 
> I tried to give you as much of that as I could fold into one story.

Survival is Insuffient: Kirsten’s Memories and Hopes

I left the airport with the Traveling Symphony on a bright Monday morning in September. At least I think it was a Monday. No one paid attention to the days of the week much anymore. Walking south toward the lights we’d seen from the airport tower, I thought about all the years I spent walking this part of the country.

I don’t remember so much about the first thirteen months after the Georgia flu struck. Everything’s a blur. My older brother, Peter twice my age at sixteen, said I was better off not remembering. He had nightmares for a long time afterward. But I didn’t know how I got my scar, only that it happened that year, and I wanted to remember, if only out of curiosity.

I do remember the wrangler at the theater in Toronto taking me home to him. Why can’t I remember her name? I avoided her and the other two girls, preferring to spend time in the dressing room of Arthur Leander, our King Lear. Him I remember, his gray hair. He was kind to me. He gave me my two comics, and now I left one with his friend Clark to keep it safe in his museum along with so many other artifacts of the past. 

When my mother didn’t come for me, the wrangler drove me home to Peter. She gave me my clouded paperweight. Tanya, that was her name. My brother and I waited for our parents to return home. I spent a lot of the time in the basement, watching TV. At night Peter went out to find food. I guess he stole it.

Peter hot-wired a car and drove us out of Toronto. Do I remember that, or did he brag about it so many times it sticks in my mind? After he ran out of gas, we walked, along with thousands of others, the survivors of the plague. At first we walked along the lake, avoiding the roads. We walked and walked. I feel like I’ve spent my life walking.

And now I was doing that again, but I had something to walk toward.

“My feet hurt.” If I remember saying that, I must have complained many times as I walked with Peter. “And it’s cold. So very cold.”

“We’re going south, it’ll get warmer,” Peter insisted.

Now in year twenty, I was going south again, this time with my Traveling Orchestra family. And maybe it would be warmer.

***

The towns in Ohio were as devastated as anywhere else in the world. New communities grew wherever people didn’t leave and where others stopped, too tired to go on. Where would they go? We walked through towns that were devastated, down to the barest minimum of population. There was nowhere free of the Georgia Flu.

My clearest memory of the start of year two was arriving in a small town in Ohio, one of the friendly ones, where the remaining population was eager to help each other. A farmer and his wife let us sleep in their barn at first, but when Peter showed he could help with their few remaining animals, they moved us to their kids’ rooms inside the house. Their daughter was away at college when the flu hit. They gave up waiting to hear from her after a while. “We don’t know whether she’s still alive,” Mrs. Monroe lamented. 

Her room contained signs of what she was obsessed with when she was in high school. It was perfect. The kind of room I’d dreamed of. A four-poster bed covered in a pink and purple floral spread, and underneath a comforter with ballerinas on it. That part wasn’t so great.

Ballet was stupid. I’d never studied any kind of dancing, never wanted to. Too focused on acting. But the room was beautiful. Pictures of movie stars surrounded a large mirror over a makeup table. Not real actors, just handsome stars. Still, they’d had parts in movies and TV.

All the furniture was painted white. “Peter, did I have white furniture?”

He shrugged. 

Peter was well, strong until one day out in the barn he stepped on a nail. The wound became infected. After surviving the flu that had decimated the world’s population, he stepped on a stupid nail. 

I was almost nine, but I couldn’t lose Peter! What would happen to me? The Monroes might take care of me, but they weren’t family. 

There were no doctors, no antibiotics, nothing to help my brother by then. All Mrs. Monroe could do was make him comfortable. The day after my ninth birthday, Peter joined all the others who’d died in the first years. 

I cried myself to sleep every night for a week. Nothing Mrs. Monroe said could ease my sadness. 

“We’re the survivors. We just have to survive,” Mr. Monroe insisted.

But it wasn’t enough for me. I feared I’d never act again. 

***

They started numbering the years during year two. It was a new world. 

Not too much happened after Peter died. Mrs. Monroe taught me to sew when the few pieces of clothing I had frayed or ripped, but soon she realized the dresses ripped because I was growing out of them. 

She sighed then went through her daughter’s closet. She had to shorten Jennifer’s jeans and dresses to fit me, but was amazed that I could stand so still as she pinned the hems.

“Actors have to know when and how to move, but also how to be very still so the audience can focus on the principal actor,” I told her. 

Jennifer didn’t have many books, but I found a paperback copy of King Lear in her desk drawer. I read it over and over, doing voices for each of the parts, male and female. Her other books didn’t interest me, mostly romances.

***

The world survived, but it wasn’t the same. No gas for cars, no satellites for cell phones, no stores to buy clothing and food. Everyone made do. 

The year I was fifteen, the Symphony came to our small town. At the time they only had two wagons made from former pickups and pulled by horses. They tacked up signs along the main street announcing their performances. I didn’t know what to expect. The signs said they’d play a symphony one night and put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet the next. 

But their Juliet got sick, something she ate, and the Symphony needed to replace her. 

“Mrs. M., do you think I should offer to play the part?” We were sitting on the front porch, shelling peas.

“To play Juliet?” She smiled that sweet smile that made me feel warm. “Will you be disappointed if they say no?”

I shook my head, but the truth was I’d be very disappointed. With all my heart I wanted to act again. “Can I go ask now?” I didn’t wait for her answer. Dropping the pod I held, I raced down the road to the town. 

It was easy to find the caravans. I could hear the horses and smell them too. Music filled the air. It had been so long. Except for a violinist who wandered through the town four years earlier, I couldn’t remember when I last heard anyone play.

I stopped where I stood on the sidewalk in front of the former shoe store turned market that usually had very little to sell, mesmerized by the sounds. When they stopped playing, I continued forward.

A woman was grooming one of the horses as I approached. 

“Who do I talk to about acting?” I asked.

Brush in hand, she turned to me. “You want to act?”

I nodded. “Many years ago, you know, before...” I couldn’t say it. “I acted in commercials.” I had only a vague recollection of what those were. “And I was also in a production of King Lear.”

“You? You must have been a little child. There aren’t any in Lear.”

“Oh, but this was a special production. Two other girls and I appeared at the beginning playing his daughters as children.” I had to convince her and the other members of the Symphony. The only line that came to me was from the paperback I’d found. 

We are not the first  
Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst.

She studied me. “Our Juliet fell sick yesterday, and we were worried she wouldn’t be able to perform tomorrow. Do you know Romeo and Juliet?”

What could I say? That I’d never seen it or read it? “Of course.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. 

“Good.” She held out her hand. “I’m the director of the symphony.”

“Kiki...I mean Kirsten Raymonde. Pleased to meet you.” I curtsied.

She smiled and took me to one of the caravans. Inside were costumes of all shapes and sizes. “We collected these from abandoned houses, but could use more. Still, I think this should fit you.” She pulled out a long dress embroidered across the bodice, tight at the waist and full in the skirt. “Try this on.”

I was afraid I’d tear it. Running two fingers over the fabric, I looked for the zipper but only found a long row of tiny fabric-covered buttons down the back. They made it even more special. I opened the ones just above and below the waist and pulled it on over my jeans and t-shirt. It felt wonderful on my bare forearms. 

She buttoned the dress and studied how it looked on me then sighed. “It’ll do. After the Symphony plays tonight, we planned to do a rehearsal. You can take Nikki’s place and see how you fit in.”

I swallowed. “And if I don’t?”

She shrugged. “We’ll perform something else tomorrow. But we were all counting on Romeo and Juliet.”

So I had just a few hours to learn my lines. But first I had to find a copy of the play. My frown disappeared, though, when she handed me frayed and marked up pages.

“This is the script we work from. We have to use what’s available without lighting, props and with only a little scenery, so we had to make adjustments.”

Memories of the production in Toronto flooded back. It suddenly hit me how much we lost. Then I looked at the pages in my hands. We still had the plays. I smiled. “I’ll be ready for the rehearsal.”

I took off the dress to protect it and found a patch of grass and weeds not far away where I could sit and memorize my lines. There were so many!

During rehearsal, I guess I did okay, since no one insisted they do a different play. Afterward, the second cello, Charlie, who’d watched from a patch of grass offstage, made a point of coming to see me. She was the only one.

Shorter than me with skin the color of expresso, rich and dark, she pulled me into a hug. “We’re going to be such good friends!”

She was right. After the performance the next night, I left with the symphony and Charlie. I never had a real friend before, at least I don’t remember any, and hated to think about what might have happened to any I had. This was my new life. 

***

Dr. Eleven liked to stand on a promontory overlooking the sea and stare at the graceful bridges connecting the islands. Whenever we’re near the lake and I look out across it, I pretend I’m him. The shimmer of the sun on the water are the islands.

Our symphony was an island, too. An island of music and theater in the vast sea of what was left of the country. Or maybe it was the bridge between the small communities of people who huddled together to survive.

Before we reached the end of the lake, we turned slightly east. Without the airport tower, we couldn’t see far enough to know where the lights were coming from. But at night, they created a glowing area where the stars didn’t shine as brightly. 

I walked with August on one side and Charlie on the other, not too far from the others except for the scouts still watching for danger ahead and behind. Charlie’s two-year-old daughter rode in the second wagon with Olivia, and Charlie’s husband Jeremy walked near the flap, keeping an eye and ear on the two little girls. 

We didn’t know the villages that had sprung up in this area. Were there any that would enjoy a performance or two? We practiced our lines anyway.

I spotted a house to the left, roof caved in and windows broken. It wasn’t much of a building, likely already looted and empty of everything but dust and rodents. And ghosts.

“What do you think?” August pointed to it.

“Hardly worth leaving the others to investigate.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right.” 

It had been a while since we broke into any abandoned houses. 

The first time: I was fifteen or sixteen and had only been with the symphony a year. Maybe more. The lock on the door was easy to pick. We tried the kitchen first, looking for any left behind food, but the cupboards were bare. On to the living room. I flipped through a magazine on a dusty end table, releasing motes into the air. Staring at me was my past. I’d never forget that face. The actor who died onstage that night, the one who gave me my comics, Arthur Leander. A boy of eight or nine was with him. 

Clark told me he thought the prophet was Arthur’s son, the blond boy in that picture, but he didn’t have those dead eyes then. I ripped out the picture and searched the house for more magazines like it, but found none. After that, every time we went through a house, I looked for gossip magazines with Arthur’s picture. I kept them in a plastic bag along with the cloudy paperweight, my paperback Lear and my copies of Dr. Eleven.

I found my Spiderman backpack in a kid’s room that same year as well as two of my three knives.

August was my best friend besides Charlie. He was the second violin. He also wrote poetry but only showed it to me. But it was Dieter I moved in with at first, soon after I joined the symphony. He was in his twenties and I was fourteen and e served me dinner by the fire. Once he dreamed he saw an airplane. He would have loved the airport, even though the planes remained on the ground. He used to brew fake coffee. Now that he’s gone, I know I should cry. Instead, I remember these inconsequential things. 

Later, I fell in love with Sayid’s regality. We were a couple until sometime last year. I’m glad he’s with us again, but my feelings for him have faded. 

I looked at the knife tattoos on my arm, three now. I got the first after a man came at me in that first year and I threw one of my knives into his throat, pulled the knife out and cleaned it. The second was for a man I killed two years later. And the third, well, that was for the last man I killed, one of the Prophet’s people.

***

Once there were cities that were all lit up at night. Traffic lights to control the flow of cars, trucks and buses. Street lights so that it was almost as bright as day at midnight. 

Once there were cities full of people. Overcrowded cities, bustling cities. Once there were cities with police to enforce the laws. 

We lost so much, but we still have the beauty of music and the inspiration of plays.

Traveling south toward the pinpricks of light, arranged in a grid, the only lights we’d seen in two decades, we stayed close to the road, the wheels of the caravans bouncing over the broken asphalt, the horses hooves clip-clopping. We stopped each night because going was treacherous in the dark, especially through unknown country.

Five days south of the airport we met a group of people traveling west. There must have been twenty of them, men women and children. They stopped a couple of hundred yards away and a man stepped forward. “Where ya heading?”

“South,” the conductor said. “We understand there’s a community in that direction, one we haven’t played for before.”

He blinked, then looked at the caravans each with the words Traveling Symphony on the side in large white letters and on the first caravan, our motto Survival is Insufficient. “You’re musicians.”

“We also put on plays. Mostly Shakespeare.”

He looked back at the people with him. “Mind if we walk with you a while?”

We were wary of strangers, especially big groups, but we were also armed. We had to be.

“Where you coming from?” the conductor asked.

“North of Detroit. ‘Tweren’t safe anymore. Not that it was before. Thought we’d take a chance, head toward Chicago.” 

“You come with us, you’ll have to take your turns hunting and guarding the caravans.” She looked over the group, mostly young and middle-aged with a couple of teenage kids. No one as young as Olivia, maybe Alexandra’s age. “Any of you have experience acting or playing an instrument?”

A woman came forward. “I worked with an amateur theater group before the flu. Did everything. Name’s Terry.”

“Charlie, show her the instruments.” The conductor turned back to the man. “We’re hoping it’ll be warmer where we’re going. Winters up north, traveling in snow and cold rain, can be hard.”

We’d spent winters in fishing towns near the St. Clair River. They let us perform in the town hall because it was so cold outside. One of those winters, I lived in a quilted jacket I’d found in a house near Kincardine.

 

***

Before the Georgia flu, every town on the continent had a local theater group. Most big cities had TV stations, besides the networks, to provide nightly news and entertainment for their citizens. The opportunities for actors, though, were concentrated in New York and California. 

I’d never been in a theater group as a kid. Someone, my mother I think, found me work. I told the newspaper guy in New Petoskey I’d done an arrowroot biscuit commercial at age three, but I honestly didn’t remember that. Still, acting’s the thing I love most. When I’m acting my fears go away.

My memories of my life before the flu are scattered. One childhood memory sticks with me. I sat with a friend on a green lawn. We closed our eyes and tried to read each other’s minds. Not only could I not read her mind but I’ve tried to picture her face and it’s as gone as my mother’s. 

***

Electricity and the things it powered. Lights and refrigerators and TVs and computers. They were part of the fabric of our lives and then it unraveled and they were gone. 

August stares at the blank TV screens whenever we enter a house. We’re getting closer to the strings of lights we saw. The first sign that someone had electricity again. Maybe they even had TVs that work.

We’d been to towns where the children didn’t believe the world had ever been different. Now we’d have proof. The Symphony had kept alive a part of the past. Now the things people missed, even after all this time, might return.


End file.
